Week 9 of the 2011 $1,000 Elbo Room Spring Trivia Tournament

I’m sorta getting the feeling that qualifying for this tournament is easier than calling a two-headed coin flip.

Look at the standings. The top eight teams can get into the contest. So far, only seven teams have actually earned points. That could leave a team who walks into the bar one evening, discovers there’s a trivia game going on, grabbing a pen and some answer slips, nailing at least third place, and entering the tournament with one playoff point.

So where are you, mystery trivia team? :)

Well, while Jeremy and Alexis are on their way to Indiana for a beer-tasting festival, I went to Elbo Room with the goal of solidifying the #1 seed in the trivia finals.

Oh, I should mention that I was joined by a special guest.

You might know him as D357.

Yes, THAT D357.

D357 is Dan from the trivia team Tres Hombres, and although you know him as being the snarky heckler on the blog comments page, he does like to play trivia and we’ve played some friendly games as a two-man team on occasion. Normally it’s Street Academy versus Tres Hombres, but tonight he wanted to play trivia and wanted to see if I was interested in joining him in a game.

I invited him to Elbo Room.

It was a light crowd at Elbo; six trivia teams showed up, of which four were either locked into the tournament or were about as locked as you could get. The first round of questions were just unbelievably brutal, including identifying the state where Gateway Computers was founded (we said Wisconsin, it was Iowa) and what color shoes are worn by the Jolly Green Giant (we went with yellow, apparently he wears green shoes). However, even with those crashes, we were in second place after 5 questions.

By halftime we were one of only two teams with positive points, and when the teams started booing after General James announced my Street Academy trivia team’s score, I shouted out, “Louder, I can’t HEAR you!”

At which point, the trivia team Woo Hoo a Go Go, as if on cue, booed twice as loud.

Nice. Now we have to work on that “less filling, tastes great” chant.

Then came a four-point question that just made us mad.

“What 1980 film features a creature named Chuck Rodent?”

First, because of the miserable acoustics at Elbo Room, as well as one of the new teams making like a James Brown song – talking loud and saying nothing – we couldn’t hear the question. We thought the host said an 80’s film with a preacher named Chuck Reddit. Which would probably explain why we wrote down “The Goonies” and lost eight points, when the answer was really Caddyshack. GRRR

After 19 questions, Street Academy was still in second place, about 8 points behind Team Schooled and a sizeable amount ahead of Woo Hoo a Go Go. The Skidmarks barely climbed above zero and approached the final question in fourth place.

The category was “All You Can Eat.”

Dan and I decided to bet a few points and at least ensure third place.

“In what decade did the first Golden Corral Restaurant open?”

Dan first said the 1970’s, and then he started thinking that it might be the 1950’s. Now keep in mind – earlier in the night, he said that the Jolly Green Giant wore green shoes, and then he changed his mind and went with yellow. And for the rest of the night, Dan and I had a discussion about Ockham’s Razor – in that the first answer might actually be the correct answer.

Although Dan was still deciding between the 1950’s and 1970’s, I wrote down 1970’s and handed in the slip.

The answer was indeed the 1970’s, and while Team Schooled – who were ahead of us – bet enough to secure first place, we still managed to nail second place. Woo Hoo a Go Go also went with a safe bet and took one playoff point for third place – and a lock into the finals. And by not even showing up, Get That Poison Out locked themselves into the finals. How about that.

So here’s the standings after nine weeks. The top eight teams are listed above the “CUT LINE”; if the tournament ended today, those would be the eight teams that can play in the championship round. Any team with a star in the box marked “Finals” has mathematically qualified for the money round, no matter how they do for the rest of the tournament.

Elbo Room Trivia Standings – Week 9

Trivia Team

Points

Totals

FINALS

1

Schooled

5

20

★

2

Street Academy

3

19

★

3

Skidmarks

12

★

4

Get That Poison Out

11

★

5

Woo Hoo a Go Go

1

9

★

T-6

The Waffledingers

5

T-6

Stern Fans

5

And only the top eight teams will make it into the final tournament round on May 26, 2011. Any team in ninth place or below will not make the cut. So teams now have to keep playing and avoid the dreaded cut line.